Quantum Optics Using Atomic Medium

Astrid Lambrecht, Jean-Michel Courty, Serge Reynaud +1 more

E. Giacobino, Jean-Michel Courty, Claude Fabre +2 more

Aurélien Dantan

We propose to realize a passive optical quantum swapping device which allows for the exchange of the quantum fluctuations of two bright optical fields interacting with a coherent atomic medium in an optical cavity. The device is based on a quantum interference process between the fields within the cavity bandwidth arising from coherent population trapping in the atomic medium.

F. E. Becerra

M. A. G. Martinez

The control of the optical properties of a medium by atomic coherence and quantum interference effects is an important area of research, not only for its fundamental aspects in the understanding of radiation and matter interaction, but also for its potential applications in the design of optical devices. Atomic coherence can emerge in a medium through the coupling of a strong coherent field to an atomic transition. This coupling affects the optical properties of the medium in a very interesting ways. For example, it may yield light amplification without population inversion. Also, it can modify the traditional dispersion of an optical medium in such a way that maximum variations of the refractive index occur around a spectral region of vanishing absorption. In the first part of this work we investigate some fundamental aspects of this coherent dynamics. We investigate how this non-inversion gain is affected by the presence of atomic motion. The coherent interaction between atom and radiation can lead to the interference between optical paths of decay. We report on an atomic setting where the interference structures depend upon the phase of the coherent field, an new effect which is absent in other resonance fluorescent phenomena. As a potential application, we investigate a novel approach for the modulation of optical signal. This approach consists of injecting atomic coherence in the medium in order to tailor its optical properties so it is a more suitable medium for modulation.

N. Sandor, Gagik P. Djotyan

A quasi-transparent propagation phenomenon is presented for a pair of frequency-modulated laser pulses in an optically thick medium of cold atomic gas. The noninteracting, identical lambda-structured atoms are driven by two classical laser fields, which are frequency-chirped in the same way around the corresponding atomic transition frequencies, maintaining two-photon (Raman) resonance. It is shown by numerical analysis that after propagating over a relatively short distance (determined by the absorption length), the frequency-chirped pulse pair is affected by the atoms in such a way that instead of exciting the atoms (as it would happen in an optically dilute medium), they create a certain coherent superposition of the ground states (which can be varied by the parameters of the incoming fields), and they propagate in the remainder of the medium without significant further losses. This quasi-lossless propagation effect of the Raman-resonant frequency-chirped pulses, described above, is not only interesting in the point of view of the laser fields, but the on-demand creation of coherent superpositions among atomic states along the optically thick medium may also find applications in quantum optical experiments and quantum informatics.